Racehorse trainer guilty of hare coursing charges

Peter Easterby, the three-times champion jumps trainer, has been found guilty of permitting land to be used for hare coursing.

8:19PM BST 29 Jul 2009

The 79-year-old former racehorse trainer was also convicted of attending a hare coursing event in March 2007.

He was convicted along with Major John Shaw, 56, who faced the same charges at Scarborough Magistrates' Court.

Both denied the charges and claimed they were not aware that what was taking place on their land in North Yorkshire was illegal.

Shaw had been advised by a leading barrister that what he was doing was legal.

However, his defence was dismissed by District Judge Christina Harrison who said the advice was wrong and ignorance was no defence in law.

Both men were given an absolute discharge following the conviction and no costs were awarded against them.

During a day-and-a-half-long trial the court was told how the hare coursing events were held over two consecutive days with hundreds of people attending.

The court heard how a policeman even turned up on the farmland owned by Shaw but thought everything was legal. However, he told the court he regretted not staying longer to find out more.

The judge was critical of how long the case took to come to court and how it had been initially handled by the police.

She said: "There is absolutely no doubt that everybody in this case has had extreme difficulty trying to wrestle what exactly Parliament meant. I have got two gentlemen here who have never been in trouble before and as far as I can see took every step to ensure what they were doing was lawful but they are in this position. It's been accepted by me and by the prosecution that they took advice or sought expert counsel. Both parties accept that was wrong.

"I am extremely concerned that a police officer attended on the first day of Major Shaw's event. The police officer went off in his own mind quite happy it was legal."

She added: "I think this could have been prevented by the police taking some action on that day. I would have thought police officers in North Yorkshire must have been briefed, and even if he wasn't fully up to date with the position there must have been more senior officers who would be."

The court was told that beaters waving flags drove the hares past a tent where a man in a red jacket was holding on to two muzzled greyhounds, one with a red collar and one with a white collar.

As the hares passed, he let slip the dogs, who chased the animals, witnessed by spectators lining the field and creating an "arena".

Yorkshire Greyhound Field Trialling Club, which organised the event, had put up a fence to stop the dogs and allow the hares to escape.

Although the events purported to be driving hares to guns for legal shooting, the court heard the only shots fired were into the air, while the fence seemed to have been in the wrong place because the hares were running a different way.

Matthew Donkin, prosecuting, said the whole event was nearly "hare coursing under another guise".

In her ruling today, Mrs Harrison said: "What is in dispute is the nature of these events – whether they constituted hare coursing, and therefore illegal."

Mrs Harrison ruled the events were indeed hare coursing and convicted both defendants.

Hare coursing was outlawed by the hunting act which came into force in 2005, but many former participants now take part in a permissible sport known as greyhound field trials, which is run under strict rules.

The court was told the hare coursing events were secretly filmed by animal rights campaigners Joe Hashman and Michelle Bryan, using a video camera disguised as a pair of field glasses.

The couple were working under cover for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), which took their evidence to the police, who launched a prosecution.

A spokeswoman for IFAW said today: "These convictions should serve as a strong warning to anybody intending to take part in similar activities in the future – they will be prosecuted."

Shaw, of Welburn, Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, spoke of his relief that his ordeal was now over after two-and-a-half years.

He said: "Our representatives have spent 700 hours of Parliamentary time discussing this shoddy, spiteful Bill.

"This is well short of the time they spent committing our Armed Forces to Iraq and Afghanistan."

Easterby, of Great Habton, North Yorkshire, said he was relieved the case had concluded, but said: "We predicted this."